1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the construction of buildings and other structures, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for insulating and imparting desired architecture styles to buildings and other structures.
2. Background of the Invention
Modern-day buildings and structures can take on a wide variety of different forms and appearances. Some aspects of a building's form or appearance are functional in nature. Other aspects are purely for aesthetic purposes. Yet other aspects serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. Whether for functional or aesthetic purposes, a significant amount of effort and resources are frequently dedicated to achieving a desired outward form or appearance for a building or structure. Such outward forms and appearances may be based on different architectural designs or styles, such as Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Early Modern, Postmodern, Colonial, Contemporary, or similar designs or styles, to name just a few. Many of these designs or styles use different building materials and architectural elements to achieve their characteristic appearance.
As alluded to above, a large part of the cost of a building or structure may be attributed to achieving a desired appearance. For example, significant time and resources may be dedicated to adding architectural elements to the exterior of a building, or covering the building with overlay materials such as stone, brick, wood, or the like. These architectural elements and overlay materials are frequently applied to buildings in an inefficient and archaic manner. For example, architectural elements and overlay materials may be delivered to a construction site and then manually transported and applied to the outside of a building using scaffolds and other relatively primitive tools. Unfortunately, such techniques fail to take advantage of modern construction and assembly techniques that have driven down prices for many industrial and consumer products, such as cars, machinery, clothing, electronics, and the like.
In view of the foregoing, what are needed are improved construction techniques and building materials for applying architectural elements, overlay materials, and other desired elements to a building or structure. Ideally, such construction techniques and building materials will take advantage of modern construction and assembly techniques commonly used to fabricate industrial and consumer products. Such construction techniques and building materials will also ideally enable a wide variety of different architectural designs and styles to be achieved for buildings and other structures, as well as provide a functional purpose, such as insulate and/or weatherproof buildings and other structures.